The true story of the hot shower hog, and the karma that came his way.

I really don’t like when experiences trigger bad memories. 

I recently took a kid to an aquatic centre, and it caused memories of a previous god-awful experience to rise from my hippocampus – the university that allows only hippopotamuses to attend.

Sorry, I mean, hippocampus - the place in the brain where memories are stored. 

And here begins the story of that abominable memory…

When most teenagers first get their driver’s licence, the first place they want to drive to is their mates house, or the shops, or work. 

When I first got my driver’s licence, the first place I drove to was my local indoor public swimming pool. I was 18.

I have my reasons. 

And here they are… 

At 14, I hurt a knee badly and part of the rehab was spent at this public pool. 

The rehab was no fun. The post-rehab shower would have been fun, had mum (who drove me) not told me I had five minutes to change, only to yell, ‘hurry up Matthew,’ after two minutes, from the swimming pool foyer.

It was the same at home. The shower limit was five minutes, but within seconds of hearing the sound of the water being turned on, she’d bellow the words, ‘get out,’ and belt on the kitchen wall. 

The sound of the thud on the wall echoed into the bathroom. If I ever thought I could sneak another 30 seconds, well, I was wrong, as the thuds continued until mum heard the sound of the water being turned off. 

Oh how I yearned for a six-minute shower. 

Under my parents roof, that was never going to happen. 

But in terms of the public pool, a driver’s licence opened up a new world of endless ‘shower’ possibilities.

On that first night as a ‘P’ Plater, I drove to the pool at about 6pm. I actually went with the intention of swimming 30 or so laps, but quit and hit the showers after three. 

I had the choice of all three showers, as all three were empty. I used the one on the left for a minute, then the one in the middle for a minute, and then the one on the right for a minute. I then turned all three on at the same time and just walked up and down underneath them six or seven times. 

I eventually settled on the far left one, in the corner. I’d been in it about 25 minutes when some other guy came in and started using the middle one. Within 40 seconds, a third guy came in and started using the right one. 

Men’s change rooms are the worst. I have always showered in board shorts, or bathers at the very least, as most young blokes (below 40) do.  

But old dudes don’t. They just let it all hang out, and not just in the showers; they also stand in front of the mirror for like ten minutes, and walk laps of the change rooms. It’s like they’re doing some weird nude parade. It’s atrocious. 

So these two other old dudes in the showers next to me were fully on show. And while the showers were well-spaced, the bloke next to me was getting closer and closer to me with every bloody move he made. 

He was ruining my longest ever shower experience, but I deserved this hot watery goodness and wasn’t going to get out early.

But then this other old dude walked in and wanted to use the showers, and being the one who’d been in the longest, it was on me to get out first. 

Expecting this scenario to occur, I came up with a plan on the drive to the pool, that would allow me to escape the guilt-inducing stares of the other two men showering, and see the ‘shower-exiting focus,’ transferred back over to them. 

I pretended to play around with the shower tap, to make the old dude waiting think the water pressure and temperature of my shower was faltering, and it worked, as he death-stared the other two other naked weirdos to get out. 

Eventually one did, and my long shower was allowed to continue. 

It was at the 45-minute mark that the next hurdle presented itself. My fingers had well and truly gone white from being under the water for so long, and were starting to peel. A couple of them even started to bleed. 

I was thinking, ‘I’m going to have to get out here, because I’m going to need a first aid kit,’ but then remembered, ‘Wait, blood is just water. Whatever blood I lose, I’ll just drink water from the shower head, and replenish.’ 

I did so, and the two new dudes in the showers beside me, who were also old and starkers, looked at me like, ‘WTF?’

I didn’t care. It meant more time in the shower, so I just kept drinking and drinking. Until... I needed to pee. 

The men’s urinal was out of order and had tape running across it. 

I had boardshorts on, so the thought of just turning around to face the shower wall and letting it run down my leg, did cross my mind. But I just couldn’t do it. I’d had a multivitamin two hours earlier and any fluid discharge was certain to come out looking like yellow gatorade, and be impossible to hide. I had to use a toilet cubicle. 

The risks of that were life-changing: ‘What if I left and got back, and my shower had been taken by somebody else?’

Maybe if I was quick I could get back in time. 

Or I could leave my thongs underneath the running water and therefore anyone who came in, would see the thongs and know the shower was already taken. 

Problem was I wasn’t wearing any thongs. 

There was only one other (unrealistic, never gonna happen, stupid as stupid) option. I could ask the two old naked dudes in the two adjacent showers to watch my shower for me. That was just too weird, and also too high-risk, as any words spoken at my end might lead to them telling me about their knee replacement, indigestion or bowel movements. 

No, there was only one option, and I just had to hope my shower would still be free when I got back. 

I turned the tap off and walked over to the other side of the change rooms to find… every single one of the four toilet cubicles occupied. 

HOW WAS THAT POSSIBLE?! There weren't that many people in the pool.

I waited, and I waited, and I waited some more. And after five minutes of waiting, I  committed the most horrible, unethical, hell-sending sin an able bodied person can commit, and I used the disable toilet. 

And I got what I deserved seconds after walking out of it – a stern talking to by pool management. 

I apologised, and walked back into the men’s change rooms with my tail between my legs. 

Upon my return, and to my surprise, all three showers were vacant. But I didn’t deserve another second under that man-made heated rainy amazingment (not a word). I had broken the sanctity of what it was to have a hot shower. I’d put my shower needs before the shower needs of others, and it would be some time before I was once again deserving of the cherished experience of a long, hot showe-showe. 

I waited a week... before driving to the pool again, swimming three laps and hitting the showers.

Only this time I limited myself to 10 minutes, and I was rewarded for it. The two old dudes who came and went were in board shorts themselves, I didn’t bleed, and therefore didn’t need to drink the shower water, and therefore didn’t need to use the toilet. 

And I’ve been limiting my shower time to 10 minutes max, ever since.